Republican Senator Rand Paul criticized President Donald Trump's military mission off the coast of Venezuela on Sunday and called the seizure of several oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea a "provocation and a prelude to war.”

“I am not in favor of seizing these ocean liners. I am not in favor of blowing up these ships of unarmed people suspected of being drug traffickers. I am not in favor of any of that,” Paul told ABC News.

This is not the first time Paul has criticized the president. Weeks ago, the Republican senator from Kentucky joined Senate Minority Leader Chuck Kaine, a Democrat from New York, and Senators Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, and Adam Kaine, a Democrat from California, in an attempt to prevent President Donald Trump from unilaterally launching any attack against Venezuela.

“The Constitution gives Congress, and Congress alone, the power to declare war. Trump’s illegal attacks by ships and threats of a land invasion of Venezuela constitute a clear abuse of power. I have introduced a bipartisan resolution on war powers to stop Trump from starting another endless war,” Kaine stated in a post on X.

In response to this stance, Trump replied that does not need congressional authorization to order bombings against drug trafficking interests located in Venezuelan territory.

Now regarding the seized ships, Paul also described the administration's policy for addressing alleged drug trafficking as “strange and contradictory.”

“And then why is former President Hernandez of Honduras, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison, being released?... So, some narco-terrorists are fine, and other narco-terrorists we're going to blow up. And then, some of them, if they aren't designated terrorists, we can arrest them,” he questioned.

This comes in addition to the recent words of Donald Trump, who said he is leaving “the possibility of a war with Venezuela on the table.”Amid an escalation of economic and military measures that have strained relations between Washington and Caracas and raised concerns both within and outside the United States. This statement came days after Trump ordered a “total and complete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela,” a measure intended to cripple the main source of income for the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and pressure him to yield to Washington's demands.

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